A new web newsreader
Steven Schveighoffer
schveiguy at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 8 04:27:43 PST 2011
On 2011-Dec-08 10:55:51+00:00, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> As mentioned previously, I've been working on a web frontend
> for the DigitalMars NNTP server. I collected ideas and
> inspiration from the several threads on this topic in the last
> few weeks, and now I think that the result is ready for beta
> testing and general use.
>
> The current (temporary) URL is:
>
> http://dfeed.kimsufi.thecybershadow.net/discussion/
>
> Here are the highlights:
>
> * Written in D, pull requests are welcome.
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed
>
> * It remembers which posts you've seen on an individual post
> basis.
> By default, read post history is stored in a compressed cookie.
>
> * Optionally, you can register an account, which will store
> your preferences and read post history in the server database.
> There is no e-mail confirmation etc.
>
> * You can choose any of three view modes:
> 1) The default "basic" view, a forum-like view with paged
> linear threads (posts are chronologically-ordered).
> 2) "Threaded", with threaded group index, and a thread
> overview under the single post display, similar to mailing list
> archives.
> 3) "Horizontal-split" - a JavaScript-powered interface with a
> split view and keyboard shortcuts, similar to a mail or
> newsgroup client.
>
> There was also another view mode, "nested", which presented
> all messages in a thread in full, arranged in their
> hierarchical order (with replies being slightly indented from
> their parents). However, the idea is not compatible with paging
> and and it didn't look well at high nesting levels, so I
> removed it.
>
> For the sake of link consistency and preserving functionality
> of links between JavaScript and no-JavaScript users, the
> "horizontal-split" view mode requires support for the HTML5
> history.pushState feature. This feature is present in all
> modern browsers except Internet Explorer.
>
> * The URL scheme attempts to be simple and consistent. There is
> one way to link to an individual post: {site
> root}/post/{message-id stripped of angle brackets}. Post links
> will open in the user's selected view mode.
>
> * Posted messages are screened for spam using several online
> services (incl. Akismet). A failed spam check, or an attempt to
> post within 1 minute of another posting attempt, will trigger a
> CAPTCHA. Solving the CAPTCHA will bypass spam/flood checks (no
> messages will be silently discarded). The posting form should
> be protected against XSRF attacks.
>
> * The posted message and quoted text formatters understand
> format=flowed and delsp=yes (RFC 2646, 3676). If all mail/news
> software did, there would be no problems with broken quote
> lines - I believe the current web interfaces on digitalmars.com
> are the most notorious offenders.
>
> * Multipart messages and attachments are decoded and are
> viewable / downloadable, although there is currently no support
> for posting attachments.
> I have also added support for decoding inline uuencoded
> attachments, which can be often found in older posts.
>
> * Page formatting is affected by the width of the browser
> window - in smaller viewports, the font becomes smaller and the
> left sidebar is hidden away. I don't expect this feature to be
> perfect due to the great variety of installed fonts, but I hope
> it will be helpful nevertheless.
>
> * The web interface gets a perfect score of 100/100 on the
> Google Page Speed test, and generates valid HTML 4.01 Strict.
>
> There are more ideas for possible future improvements (e.g.
> attachment posting support and full-text search), but I think
> these are beyond the scope of "version 1.0". I'm somewhat
> exhausted right now, and need to catch up on other projects,
> so, with your feedback, we can revisit future improvements a
> while later.
>
> If there is interest to use DFeed as the main web interface
> (and thus make it available from a D-related domain), I think
> the best way to do this would be to redirect two subdomains to
> my server (a separate subdomain for attachments, for security).
> It would also be possible to replace the old web interfaces
> with working redirects to DFeed.
you receive an A+ from me!
BTW, is there any way to sort the threaded view so that the
newest messages appear on top? Simply because, in a web page,
the top is what shows up first.
The speed is incredible. I'm used to webnews which takes several
seconds to do its thing (not surprising, it's in php).
-Steve
(Posted from the new web interface).
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